In the construction field, and particularly in interior construction, walls are commonly formed with a plurality of abutting wallboard panels or the like used to construct interior walls. A wall joint is formed at a location where two panels meet. To provide a smooth, continuous wall appearance, joint tape is applied to the wall joint. Tape is either applied to the wall joints by hand, or using devices commonly referred to as taper or taping tools.
Taper or taping tools apply a viscous filling and adhering material in the form of joint compound to the joint tape and subsequently apply the compound and tape to a wall joint. Such joint compound is also commonly referred to as mud. A variety of taper tools, also referred to as automatic dispensing devices, exist in the market place, but the taper tools generally operate in a similar manner. Initially, the taper tool is used to apply the tape and joint compound to a wall joint. The tape exits the tool from its first or forward end. After the taper tool reaches the top or bottom of the joint (depending on which direction the operator is applying the tape and compound) and completes tape application for the particular wall joint, the operator activates a cutting mechanism used to cut the tape. Typically, the cutting mechanism is disposed on and behind the forward end of the taper tool.
Accordingly, for the next application of tape to the wall surface, the tape must be advanced to the forward end of the taper tool. This can be performed by either manually grasping the tape and feeding the tape to the forward end, or by a tape advancing assembly, which is also connected to the taper tool. The tape advancing assembly is actuatable by the operator and engages the tape to advance the leading edge of the tape toward the forward end of the taper tool. Suitable exemplary taping tools are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,086,121; 5,882,691; 6,581,805; 6,874,557; 7,624,782 and US Patent Application Publication No. US 2007/0261334, all of which are incorporated by reference. Unfortunately, advancing the leading edge of the tape in either of these manners does not provide tape with sufficient compound applied thereto. Accordingly, the portion of the tape without compound will not stick to the wall surface and will not provide an effective seal between wall sections. Other drawbacks of conventional taping tools relate to the significant volume of joint compound required for properly adhering the tape to the wall joint, and the frequent difficulty in obtaining a good adhesive bond between the tape and the joint.
In conventional drywall construction, a typical 10,000 sq. ft. gypsum panel wall area will require over 208 pieces of gypsum panels provided by the gypsum panel manufacturer in a 4 ft×12 ft. sheet dimension. Often, the board installation process can take up to two days to complete. The gypsum panels are typically attached as full sheets and also cut to smaller and different individual dimensions less than 4 ft×12 ft size to cover the wall assembly framing, which can create over 275 individual pieces of gypsum panels attached to framing and creating numerous abutting joint seams which require joint reinforcement with joint tape affixed over the joint seams. This joint reinforcement process is commonly referred to as the joint taping operation.
A conventional taping operation is typically staffed using a 3-person crew per mechanical taping tool employed, where one crew member operates the mechanical taping tool by applying joint tapes coated in joint compound over the flat seams where panels are installed and abut edge to edge along a flat plane and angle seams where panels are installed and abut at an angle. The other two crew members work in concert seating and/or setting the joint tape firmly over the joint and wiping excess joint compound away.
Currently, using the aforementioned skilled 3-person crew and taping process, the joint taping operation typically requires over 15 man-hours of labor and approximately 45 to 50+ gallons of joint compound per 10,000 sq. ft. of installed gypsum panels to perform the joint taping operation. During this time, the taping tool operator will need to refill the taping tool with joint compound over 50 times using a taping tool having a fixed volume capacity reservoir, which adversely affects productivity. This current taping operation using joint tape and joint compound materials can take over 24 hours to dry under good drying conditions, such as 75° F./50% relative humidity, before other joint finishing operations can be effectively performed.